Vacation Day 2

This morning everyone got up and ready (minus our kiddos) and made their way to the fairgrounds to start setting up for the party.  My little ones must have been worn out from the previous night because it was close to 9 before they got out of bed!  While they were sleeping, Ma-maw and I finished ironing everyone's wedding clothes.  Once the kiddos were up and dressed, we made our way out to help with the decorating!

Julianne needed a higher seat in order to supervise appropriately.

The florist arrived with fresh flowers and small vases to be used on the tables

Little Miss was more than willing to jump in and help with the decorating.  Although, she was disappointed there were no streamers and balloons...

The head table - the bride's and bridesmaids bouquets will be added after the wedding.

Aunt Katie wanted to keep the decorating simple, and it turned out beautifully!

The finished cake - the topper was custom-done: it says Mr. {&} Mrs. Ricklefs with a snowflake.  The mugs were a gift the couple received early - one has Mrs. and the other has Mr.  I then added the ribbon for a little something extra.

Back in January when Ma-maw and I went to Iowa to help dress shop, Ma-maw had the idea to make a photo prop of a couple and a snowmobile.  We mentioned the idea to Aunt Katie, and she thought it would be fun as well, but was unsure what Brian would think.  Turns out, he thought it would be a fun idea too!  So, that became my big project.  I searched online for various pictures of couples on snowmobiles, and I sent them to Katie and Brian to decide what they wanted.  I was lucky enough to be able to use a projector at school to blow the image up and trace it on butcher block paper.  I brought it home and over the course of a week created the following master piece...

I think the groom and bride were happy with the way it turned out...

I even got Dallas to get his picture in it with me

We finished the decorating party with pizza and drinks, and then everyone went on their merry way to get cleaned up for the rehearsal.

Katie and Brian chose to do an outside wedding at the Historical Society on the edge of town.  There is a lovely flower garden there, and it made the perfect setting for the intimate wedding they wanted.

After rehearsal, Brian's parents treated us to dinner.  Pa-paw managed to get a hold of Julianne before the meal.

I then convinced the other kiddos to join them for a picture...

Dallas and Daddy waiting on the food to arrive

Little Miss doing her thang...

We ended the meal with cherry pie and ice cream for dessert...Sugar thought it was the best part!

One more picture of the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs.!!!

Until next time...

Vacation Day 1

Yesterday, we made the drive to Aunt Katie's house!  We left around 8:40 a.m. and made it to the outskirts of St. Louis before Momma stopped for a bathroom break.  A few minutes back on the road, and Julianne was out for her first nap!  We had packed lunch meat sandwiches (lunchables for the kiddos), so we kept right on rolling through the lunch hour and nap time.  We made another stop in Mt. Pleasant, IA; and as luck would have it, there were many trailer loads of tractors leaving town.  The boys were in heaven getting to see so many antiques while pumping gas!  By the time we reached Waterloo, all three kiddos were sleeping.  They all slept for a little over an hour, talk about a quite van ride!  We were so extremely pleased with how well everyone did...especially Julianne.  She has never been a good traveler, but she rocked this trip.  The last 20 minutes, she was pretty unhappy, but we could handle 20 minutes of a 10 hour trip!

While we were driving, Pa-paw, Ma-maw and Aunt Lisa (they drove out on Tuesday), we running errors for Aunt Katie.  One of which included picking up drinks for the reception...

Today was spent making the cakes for the reception.  Aunt Katie baked some of them last week, and Ma-maw finished baking the others yesterday.  After an extra trip to the grocery for more icing coloring and supplies, we were able to get the 6 sheet cakes and the tiered cake decorated by mid-afternoon!

Those are (peppermint) snowflake candies on the sheet cakes that I had made last week!  I also made some smaller ones in red and white to have on the dessert table at the reception.

The bottom two tiers are styrofoam, the top tier is a real cake for the bride and groom to cut at the reception.

After finishing the cakes, and cleaning up a bit, us girls headed to the "city" to have a little pampering!  We went to the beauty college as the other places in town seemed to be highway robbery for the price to get your nails done.  Ma-maw, Aunt Lisa, and Aunt Katie had both manis and pedis, while I went for just a pedi and Reba got her fingernails polished.  In the end, we all had a good chuckle about the gals that did our nails.  Let's just say my pedi and polish took the same amount of time as the other's manis and pedis!  Either my gal was really slow, or their's were really fast!

A few before shots...

Then, Little Miss got bored and started using my camera...

She was pretty excited to spend the evening with the girls and to get her nails done.

Until next time...

I'm the Gingerbread Man

A couple weekends ago, when Pa, Gram and Aunt Josie came to visit, Gram brought along a decorating kit.  Dallas and Reba were excited to get to decorate the Gingerbread Man!

 

Getting ready to begin

Dallas and Aunt Josie adding curly hair

 Reba and Gram adding the bow

The finished project!

Until next time...

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Dallas was very excited to come home from Aunt Katie's and get the Christmas tree up!  After a full day of work around the house Monday after returning from Iowa, we started on the Christmas tree that night.  Thankfully, I had a couple strands of lights that worked!

 

Reba got to hang the first ornament, an angel from her godparents.

Dallas then hung his dog "ornament" that he got from Reba's godparents as well.

The finished tree!

We were also able to get the kiddos' personal trees up in their room.  Ma-maw gets them a special ornament each year, so Dallas has 4 ornaments and he thought he needed to add a few more items to "fill up" his tree.

Reba's tree

Last year, one of Doug's aunts passed down a tree to us; I think it looks wonderful in the basement!

We also put up outside decorations (a week after putting up the inside trees).  Last year, my "Charlie Brown" tree lost 98% of its lights, so this year I had the brilliant idea to take those lights off and put new lights on.  Sound easy enough?  It was a pain! but it at least it looks great now...

Finally, my "Black Friday" find...a Nativity Set

Until next time...

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

I finally drug up the decorations one day while the kiddos were napping and Doug was working in the garage and barn.  Once I got the tree together, these were the only lights that lit up on my pre-lit tree...

Frustration!

Luckily, I had a couple strands of white lights that I was able to put on to make the tree decent.  Here's the finished product...

The kiddos loved helping us pull the ornaments out of the tubs and finding the perfect place to hang them on the tree.  We were having so much fun, I forgot to take any pictures...

The kiddos each have a small tree in their room.  Ma-maw started this tradition on Dallas' 1st Christmas.  She gets the kiddos an ornament each on Christmas to hang on their special tree.  She tries to get an ornament that is a reminder of something special to them that year.

This is Dallas' tree (2008 - baby's 1st Christmas, 2009 - animals {from going to the fairs with Ma-maw and Pa-paw}, 2010 - a steam engine train)

This is Reba's tree (2009 - baby's 1st Christmas, 2010 - Santa Claus {for visiting Santa the first time})

Doug and I were even able to decorate outside!  Sorry, my pictures aren't the greatest, but you get the idea :)

Until next time...